The Political Implications of Urban Displacement: Notes from Two Fieldwork Research Projects in Casablanca

Resettlement programs have always been in the political agenda of public institutions and administrators of Casablanca since its growth during the French Protectorate. Today real estate and private multinational capital sneak into local and national powers, pushing public authorities to clear land for new urban development through demolition and resettlement of local residents. The dwellers of areas such as the old town centre (medina) and the slums (karyan) increasingly react to displacement by challenging this urban agenda frontally with their bodies and words, but often also deploying what James Scott calls “weapons of the weak”, i.e. implicit acts of resistance and symbolic dissent. Reversing Asef Bayat’s statement, we consider residents of these stigmatized neighbourhoods “revolutionaries without a revolution”, partisans of an intimate cause of their own, that aims at having a home and surviving in a hostile city. Our reflections are the product of two separate fieldwork researches: one with the inhabitants of informal neighbourhoods, another with residents and former residents of the old medina. The two cases show how resettlement affects the sense of belonging and of cohesion of low-income classes by uprooting the founding element of the everyday life: the house. The uncertainty about the possibility to keep their own home deeply conditions the implicit social pact with the monarchy apparatus, and may represent one of the conditions that are undermining the allegiance to the monarchy itself.

An Analysis of Urban Initiatives in Cairo: Locality, Everyday Politics and Relational Space in Cairo’s Unplanned Neighbourhoods

This article focuses on urban activism and social movements that emerged in Cairo between 2011 and 2014 and argues that in unplanned areas these initiatives shape patterns of agency and social encounter. This contribution therefore investigates the transformative potential activated by the encounters between women of different social background in a small association (ǧamā‘iyya) in the unplanned area of Ezbet al-Haggana, in the north-east periphery of Cairo. Through analytical categories such as the “everyday politics”, “informality”, “relational space” and “capacity to aspire”, the article analyses how the everyday interactions, even within apparently non-politicized actions, reveal features of social change and mobility. The materials presented have been collected during a three-year research period conducted between 2012 and 2015. The fieldwork included 10 semi-structured interviews with local activists and institutional actors as well as an ethnographic account, which will be reported in the text.

I Call Center in Marocco: uno studio sulle condizioni di lavoro nel settore

This article examines the main factors behind bad working conditions in the Call Centers of Morocco. The research is based on fieldwork including 15 semi-structured interviews and in the analysis of government records, labour legislation, academic studies, statistics and other reports from international organizations. The interviews were carried out in Arabic and French in 2018 in Casablanca, Rabat, Fès, Meknès and they involved workers, former workers, trade union leaders and employers from the Call Center sector. Thanks to the interviews we are able to assess in detail the issues faced by workers and, consequently, to explore them. The article highlights the fact that the bad working conditions are caused by a combination of multiple factors, such as the effects of neoliberal reforms, the economic dependence on Europe but also the inefficiency of the labour inspections. The first part discusses the broad factors including the telecommunications’ sector reforms, international agreements, legal and tax reforms that exacerbate directly or indirectly the working conditions. The second part aims to investigate the centers organization and other micro-factors that affect the possibility of claiming rights and speaking out against unfair practices.

La casa nelle narrazioni in lotta

This article advances an analysis of the struggles led by women living in Tangier’s working-class neighbourhoods over the past decade. Protest movements have emerged in Northern Morocco in response to the impacts of neoliberal processes, and specifically against the proliferation of Free Trade Zones and urban developments associated to internal migration. These social struggles are analysed through the “house” category, whereby the house is interpreted as a dynamic, ever-changing and situated category, through which a language of ordinary struggles has developed. Women play a crucial role in such struggles, using their agency to defend a whole set of values under attack by neoliberal processes. The narrative of household-centred struggles gives back the image of a constant urban turmoil, as well as a feeling of familiarity with such struggles that is a key factor behind the massive participation in protests in Southern Mediterranean countries.